Kringle Booktalk

Grades

3–5

This is the life of a boy named Kringle who was to change the lives of children everywhere.

That night, the goblins used that weapon when they attacked Merwen and Kringle. Merwen shoved him out the door when the ice storm inside the hut began, but she vanished when the hut exploded. Three days later, hungry, weak and cold, Kringle finally left his ruined home, wrapped in his father’s cloak and carrying Merwen’s wooden staff, and began his journey. But when he got to the nearest town, he found it had been destroyed by goblins. Sure that they were the ones that had attacked him and Merwen, he began to track them. But it was dark, and in his hurry, he ran into a tree and knocked himself out. When he woke up, he was in a small wagon pulled by two sheep and surrounded by elves, who took him to their home and took care of him. Several weeks later, Hrothr, the oldest of the elves, told Kringle how his father had died protecting Hrothr and Freya from goblins, and how Freya had made the first prophecy: “The child shall know.” Then Hrothr showed Kringle the magical eelven runestones, and read their meaning when Kringle cast them down. “From the warmth of hearthfire a journey is begun, through stillness, darkness, and the coldness of ice…and yet the greater journey is within…”

This booktalk was written by librarian and booktalking expert Joni R. Bodart.